The regeneration of farmers is essential to ensure Indonesia’s food security, according to a researcher from the Center for Indonesian Policy Studies (CIPS), Azizah Fauzi.
The regeneration of farmers must occur in line with Indonesia’s growing population, she added during a discussion on the 2022 National Farmers Day, which was followed online from here on Friday.
“The regeneration of farmers is very important as an effort to improve food security because one of the elements of food security is the availability of food. Thus, the regeneration of farmers is important as one of our efforts to ensure that food remains available,” she remarked.
In addition, Fauzi emphasized the importance of farmers’ regeneration in modernizing the agricultural system in Indonesia. The younger generation, which is more familiar with technology, will be able to adapt to the utilization of agricultural devices or applications more easily.
“To this end, the hope is that the regeneration of farmers would also accelerate our agriculture (sector) so that it can be more open to technology, modern agriculture, and can adopt them more easily,” she explained.
According to Statistics Indonesia (BPS) data, in 2018, the majority of farmers in Indonesia were aged 45 years and above, she noted. Currently, only 8 percent of the total number of farmers in the country are aged below 40 years.
In addition, BPS data showed that farmers in Indonesia are still dominated by workers with a lower level of education. About 66.42 percent of the workforce in the agricultural sector did not graduate from elementary school or did not attend school at all. Meanwhile, around 16.13 percent passed the junior high school level.
Source: Antara News